Passionate about IP! Since June 2003 the IPKat has covered copyright, patent, trade mark, info-tech, privacy and confidentiality issues from a mainly UK and European perspective. The team is Eleonora Rosati, Annsley Merelle Ward, Neil J. Wilkof, and Merpel. Nicola Searle is currently on sabbatical. Read, post comments and participate! E-mail the Kats here

The team is joined by GuestKats Mirko Brüß, Rosie Burbidge, Nedim Malovic, Frantzeska Papadopolou, Mathilde Pavis, and Eibhlin Vardy

Monday, 10 August 2015

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comments: a reminder.
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Around the weblogs. First, a couple of words of congratulations. The Afro-IP weblog has passed the 900 mark for email subscribers and the 1709 Blog for copyright enthusiasts has hit the 2,500 mark. Well done! As for actual blogposts, there's a thoughtful piece from fellow Kat Neil on the IP Finance weblog on the topic of 3D printers: what sort of future do they have and are they suffering now for the hype that accompanied their first foray into our consciousness? On the SOLO IP blog, Barbara Cookson looks at patent filing strategy for Patents of Unitary Effect (UPPs, as we may find ourselves calling them: UPP = Unitary Patent Protection). The Aistemos blog asks if the death of a patent might not actually be a sign of life of the patent system. Finally PatLit carries a short note on the extent to which costs might be extracted from an inactive patent owner who takes no part in a European Patent Office opposition.

"there
were hopes it would be a distraction from the controversy for a new Olympic
Stadium that ended up with expensive plans being scrapped, but the rolling out of
the Tokyo Olympics 2020 logo on 24 July now looks as though it was set to
cause even more headaches. To begin with, reception of the logo has
been mixed,
and now allegations of plagiarism have arisen. Belgian designer Olivier Debie
of Studio Debie took to Twitter at
the end of last month to question the similarities between his logo for Theatre
de Liege and the logo designed by Kenjiro Sano.

Sano and
Japanese Government officials are refraining from comment at this point.
However, a further allegation has been made by Hey Studio in Spain that the new
Olympic logo bears a resemblance to a logo they
designed to help support Japan after the March 2011 earthquake and
tsunami. Regardless of whether Sano’s logo can be proved original, public
reaction could soon see it heading to the scrap heap too".

Late last week, former
guest Kat Darren
Mealehad something
to say about the lack of action to tackle confusingly similar
lookalike packaging and products in the United Kingdom, citing two episodes in
recent times involving retailers Aldi. His words struck a chord with
another eminent personality in the field of European intellectual property, Dr Andreas
Lubberger (Lubberger Lehment, Berlin), who writes:

It is interesting to learn that Aldi is forcing even the IP
community in the United Kingdom to review the arsenal of legal weapons against
copycats. As for Germany I may dare to say that Aldi, Lidl and Co., have
achieved a reputation for systematic copying of branded fast-moving consumer
goods which has the opposite effect of serving as evidence of the well-known
status of the brands in question. In my belief, being copied by Aldi should
serve as a rebuttable presumption that the attacked genuine brand product
enjoys a leading market position.

However, if
there is a problem in evidencing the taking of unfair advantage or if there is
a lack of trade mark protection -- as in the case of Morrocanoil[noted
by the IPKat here]--
one may probably address the problem of misleading consumers in regard to
product's origin. At least here in Germany (and there is no reason why not
likewise in the UK) consumers have adapted the perception that big brand
manufacturers secretly sell their products to Aldi as a so-called “second
brand”. Consumers already can inform themselves about known cases of this
phenomenon through books[of which one is illustrated on the left]and
are prepared to believe in a “second brand offer” once they detect a certain
similarity to a branded product which they know from the shelves of the regular
channels of distribution.

Market research initiated by the German Trade Mark
Association (Markenverband) as long ago as 2004 came to the conclusion that 77%
of German consumers were convinced that Aldi offered "second brand"
products to a significant share of its whole assortment (26%). In result, one may well complain
that Aldi-lookalikes not only take unfair advantage of the repute of branded
products but also create a false perception of a second brand character because
of their outer similarity. That again justifies the conclusion that there has
been an act of an unfair trade practice or of trade mark infringement.

1 comment:

If consumers are of the view that Aldi brands are licensed by the manufacturers of products licenced by Aldi, on the basis that this is often the case, and this is well known, is not the sale to Aldi without a contractual restriction against look alike brands by the manufacture a deliberate choice to cause source confusion to the public?

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